324. Significance of a Word

The whole creation is from one word OM. Each word we speak has that significance in its own world. Each important event of our life is a world of its own. In each such world, there is a WORD that determines its course. Man, out of ignorance, unconsciousness, selfishness, and secretiveness neglects that word. It leads to other results. The other man's point of view, a spiritual view of life or wisdom enables one to know such a word. It avoids a tragic course or opens up a possibility.

"American Rhapsody" is a film about fugitives from Hungary during the Russian occupation. An aristocratic family escaped from Hungary, crossing the border with their six year old daughter, leaving behind a baby girl. The family landed in the USA, the father secured a job and settled down. The baby girl, left in the care of peasants back in Hungary, grew to the age of six. The relentless efforts of her mother at last bore fruit. The Red Cross arranged for the girl to leave Hungary and travel to the USA. Her foster parents were very attached to the child and she was devoted to them. Landing in the USA, her real parents passionately received her and brought her up affectionately. But the one thing the child wanted was to return to her foster parents. She constantly ran away from home. Once her father found her in a park and offered her a deal. "When you grow up, if you still want to return to Hungary, I shall buy you a ticket." At the age of 16, the girl fell in love and the mother, being a European, could not stand the American ways and locked her daughter in her room. The unhappy girl reminded the father of his deal and finally was allowed to travel back to Hungary.

At Budapest, the girl learned more of the circumstances surrounding her parents' escape from Hungary. Her real mother had left Hungary because her own father had been shot dead by a Russian soldier in a restaurant, when the father was trying to protect his wife from the soldier. When the girl heard this story about her mother, she said, "My mother never told me this. I want to return to her in the USA." From that moment, the child understood what her mother had suffered and why she had run away from her native land. The mother rose in the child's affectionate esteem. What the mother had hidden from the child was important to her. The daughter who had cried to her mother, "I hate you" and run away, now turned around when that one incident was known to her. Our affection sometimes becomes affectionate folly. We never know what is important for another, be it a child. What we do not know, our Spirit knows. When the Spirit is on the surface, the word that matters catches its ears.